Various systems are available that generate prompts (such as voicemail prompts, email prompts, etc.) for users of the systems. These prompts may provide information about a particular system or feature. Alternatively, these prompts may provide a list of options or functions available to the user. Multiple prompts may be arranged in a hierarchy such that prompts provided to a particular user may change as that user navigates through the prompt hierarchy. Example prompts include, “You have three new voicemail messages”, “You have two new email messages”, “Press 1 to save this message or press 2 to delete this message” and “Your message has been sent”. The prompts used in a particular system may vary depending on the characteristics of the particular system.
Certain prompts may include multiple parts. For example, a prompt generated in a unified messaging system may include the following parts: “You have”, “two”, “new voicemail messages”, “three”, “new email messages”, “and”, “no”, and “new fax messages”. These multiple parts are concatenated together to form a single prompt that is communicated to the user. The prompt may be displayed to the user in printed form, audibly played for the user to hear, or provided to the user in another manner.
When the prompts are being provided in a single language, such as English, handling prompts with one or more parts is relatively simple. However, when a particular system is required to generate and process prompts in multiple languages and/or multiple dialects, the handling of prompts with multiple parts becomes more complicated. For example, concatenating several prompt parts (or prompt components) in a particular order may not be appropriate for all languages. The particular order of prompt parts may need to change depending on the language for which the prompt is being generated. Many systems use a variety of prompts and prompt components that can be arranged in various manners. Attempting to create and store a separate prompt for every possible combination of prompt components in every language and every dialect is not practical.
Accordingly, there is a need for systems and methods that allow prompts to be generated in a variety of different languages using one or more prompt components.